christine milne

Christine Milne was leader of the Australian Greens from 2012 to 2015. After growing up on a dairy farm at Wesley Vale, she attended boarding school in Hobart and obtained a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History from the University of Tasmania.

From 1975 to 1984 she worked as a secondary school teacher, teaching English, History and Social Science. She first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its environmental impact.

She was arrested and jailed in 1983 while protesting the Franklin Dam. In 1993 she became the first woman to lead a political party in Tasmania, and led the Tasmanian Greens for five years through a period of significant reform in the areas of gun control, same-sex relationships and economic reform and at time of considerable turmoil in the forests.

She was one of Australia’s Bicentennial Women 88 Award winners, was appointed to the United Nations Global Roll 500 of Honour in 1990 for her conservation work, and was elected to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Council in 2000.

After finishing her decade-long senate career in 2015, she was appointed as an ambassador for the Global Greens.